|

Search

National School of Government

Feedback

• Request email bulletins
• Website feedback

Crime and criminal justice reform

On 30 October 2006, the Crime and Society Foundation (CSF) published a monograph (Does criminal justice work? The 'Right for the wrong reasons' debate) which incorporates responses to their previous paper from political, public policy and academic commentators. The five key propositions in Right for the wrong reasons are:

• Criminal justice reform and crime reduction are different policy challenges. It is a fundamental error to confuse reforming criminal justice with reducing crime.
• Crime is far more common, everyday and widespread than official statistics would have us believe.
• In the face of such widespread crime, the criminal justice system has very little impact.

The criminal justice system does have a role. It is there to regulate certain types of crimes and criminals, rather than to resolve crime and make society safer.

The crime reduction challenge involves being honest about the scale and nature of crime and related harms, and developing a far broader range of policies to address them than those afforded by the criminal justice system.

• The other responses are published on the CSF website
• The full document can be viewed on the CSF website